The
Spelling B educational toy is
preprogrammed to teach the spelling of simple words through different games
using a pictured booklet. In this booklet a lot of things are numbered and
Spelling B askes you to type the corresponding word. A nice feature of this game
is an added buzzer to give some noisy feedback.

From
a technical point of view the toy makes use of the technology introduced in 1978
with the Speak & Spell: The TMC0272 microcontroller is derived from the
TMS1000 series and adopted to control both the keyboard and the display. A
second microcontroller with the TMC1984 designation is used as an
"external" memory. The TMS1980 series was used in other educational
toys, e.g. the Math Marvel and DataMan.

The unusual concept of a Master/Slave design with two microcomputers was later
revised, the 2nd generation of the Spelling
B uses a
TMC0355, known as "128kBit Speech-ROM" of the Speak & Spell
family. The Spelling B was a very successful product in the late 70s and
Texas Instruments manufactured them even in El Salvadore. We discovered no
differences between a Spelling B assembled in San
Salvadore and this Abilene, TX built model.

In the United Kingdom we noticed the two different versions of the
Spelling B, too. The early Spelling
B (UK) uses the electronics of the original Spelling B, while the later Spelling
ABC (UK) is based on the revised electronics.

Explore The Spelling ABC sold
in Germany is based on the 2nd generation but uses another language ROM.

All models were later replaced with a product using a
LC-display. View them here.

Innovative learning aids for children, including one that
talks, compact powerful calculators for home and office, and multi-function digital timepieces with long life batteries for men and women were among a dozen products introduced by Texas
Instruments Incorporated at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show, June 11-14.

The talking learning aid is called Speak & Spell™. An outgrowth of TI's basic research in synthetic
speech, the product is designed to help children seven and up learn how to spell and pronounce
more than 200 commonly misspelled words. Solid State Speech™ is an entirely new concept which stores words in a solid-state memory much like a calculator stores
numbers.

Also introduced in TI's new Learning Center™ product group were Spelling B™, a silent mate to Speak & Spell that helps children six and up learn
spelling, and First Watch™, which teaches five to seven-year-olds to read any
timepiece, whether digital or analog (with hands).

Spelling B

Spelling B, a handheld learning aid, uses a colorful picture book to
help teach children six years old and up how to spell via word/picture
association. A child uses a randomly generated number to find the corresponding object in the book, and spells
the object's name by pressing Spelling B's alphabet keys. Spelling B indicates right or wrong plus keeps score. Special pre-spelling
activities for younger children include "Starts With," a game in which the child simply enters a word's first
letter. Additional learning games such as "Mystery Word" and "Scramble" are
included for older children.

Spelling B, to be shipped in September, has a suggested retail
price of $30.